


Spinning Wheel’s Spindle

by evilythedwarf



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:10:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If she never told him, if she never let herself believe he was it for her, then it wasn’t real and it was never going to fall to pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spinning Wheel’s Spindle

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the S4 finale

See, the thing that always bothered Meredith about fairytales was the Very Bad Thing. Because there is no fairytale without a Very Bad Thing. Snow White ate the apple, Sleeping Beauty touched the spinning wheel’s spindle and Cinderella had that whole evil step-family thing going on. Why couldn’t they go straight to their happily ever afters? Why all the pain and the disappointment and the issues?

It would be so much easier if life was like the stories she read as a child – the ones she didn’t believe in, even then, because when you have to wait until your mother passes out from blood loss to call 911, you stop believing in anything but the cold, hard truth, that bad things happen more often than not and there’s nothing you can do about it. So now, she’s got a freaking prince who’s not here when she comes to declare her undying love for him and she’s got a box of candles she’s not sure she wants to use.

So what if she memorized the floor plans of the house, and what if she’s just about to do one of those things Meredith never would have done had she not met Derek Shepherd? He screws up with her brain as well as her heart, and she always tells herself she won’t forgive him for it but then she sees him and, well… and he’s McDreamy for a reason, alright?

She takes the first candle, sighs deeply and puts it on the ground. This is the first stone of her mortifying humiliation. She might as well go pick up a boom box and stand on the gallery while he does one of those amazing, mouth-melting surgeries, might as well just tattoo it on her forehead:  _I am McDreamy’s doormat._

She places the white candles on neat, perfect lines, all the while muttering about stupid grand gestures and stupid Derek who’s not here and how she is a stupid stupid woman who is so setting herself up for disappointment.

She wants to tell him she loves him, she wants to tell him she wants the house and the kids and the White Picket Fence ®, but she’s afraid of him. Afraid he was her last chance at that fairytale ending.

If she never tells him, she’s safe. If she never tells him, if she never lets herself believe he is it for her, then it’s not real and it’s never going to fall to pieces. It’s never going to be over because it will never begin and she’s never going to have to be unhappy.

Meredith hasn’t yet figured out when everything went so wrong, nor which of the very bad things that happened to her in life was  **the** Very Bad Thing. It’s not like it’s easy to narrow it down.

Some people are so screwed up that they thrive on misery, that they’re actually relieved when things to go wrong because then it’s over and they don’t have to wait for it anymore. They have nothing left to lose. Meredith doesn’t want to be one of those people anymore, she wants to be stop being afraid of happiness. So she places the last candle, the one that marks the room where she can maybe sort of see kids playing in someday.

Maybe if her life had been different, if Richard had never left Ellis and Meredith had grown up with someone who was capable of showing love, if her father hadn’t left her, if her heart hadn’t broke time after time, maybe then she wouldn’t feel like it’s too late for her. She stopped wishing and hoping a long time ago and now all she’s got left is… exactly what does she got left? She didn’t even have Derek, at the moment, just some kind of certainty that told her that, if he was it for her, then she might possibly be it for him too and isn’t that worth it?

She thinks it might be worth it, which is why she’s so damn afraid. It’s all part of the mean and vicious circle of her life: there’s misery and then a glimpse of happiness and then fear. Horrible, paralyzing fear that makes her want to hide away until the world goes away. It makes her push away Derek when he wants in, and cling to him when it looks like he’s going away. Unstable? Well, yeah, but the one true constant in her life is that nothing is constant. Except for maybe Derek. Maybe.

Derek is the freaking love of her life, and that annoys her to no end because that belongs in children’s books and Disney movies. Real life never works out like the storybooks, there’s never a fairy godmother who will turn a pumpkin into a carriage and make it all better and those who are waiting for it… Meredith wouldn’t know because she’s never had much expectations. She’s just happy if she can make it to the end of the day, usually. 

But Lately, she’s been starting to think about the kids and the house and Derek and not being the kind of person who thrives on misery and drama and she feels brave tonight, she feels like not giving up without trying and so she lights the first candle, and the second, and the third, and then all of a sudden she’s standing on the middle of a serious fire-hazard and the voice in the back of her head says: Derek is not going to come. Only in fairytales things always work out and let’s face it, Meredith’s life? Is not, has never been, happily ever after material.

She berates herself for being stupid and senseless and seriously, what is wrong with her? But then he shows up and he looks at her and all those names he was going to call him for not being there when she was finally freaking ready die on her tongues because she realizes that she has no crystal slipper and that even if there are no happily ever afters, reality… is so much better.


End file.
